These, Mart knew, comprised the loosely organized group which endeavored to keep in effect a working agreement between the various gangs. All supposedly were friendly; certainly all acknowledged him as the Big Shot — yet as he studied them red lights of suspicion and rage danced in his eyes.
He centered his attention on Fat, who was squirming uneasily in his chair. Finally Fat broke the silence.
“I thought you’d like to have some of the boys here, Mart. This Chicago cannon sure shot a big hole in things when he turned Dogs off.”
“He did!” Mart replied coldly. “Now what did you tell the dicks?”
“Usual thing — stranger — bum description. I knowed you’d want to tend to this guy yourself.”
“Instead of which he nearly attended to me.”
Mart snapped the words out angrily. He was watching Fat’s expression closely. What he saw sent his nails digging into his palms. Fat knew! He was too ready with his apparently surprised query:
“Hey? You mean this Chicago gun was in th’ scuffle out there just now?”
Mart favored him with a snarling grin; threw the smashed derby into his lap.
“That’s what he left behind,” he rasped. “Write your own ticket. He got me flat-footed. I was thinking about the way Dogs had been burned down. He pretended you’d sent him to bring us in through the side door, then got in behind me and tried to knock me off with a sap. Chimp crawled him, but he shot his way out and got away in my car.”
Fat did not respond, but Mart saw that his hands were trembling. The air was electric with tension now and it seemed that every member of the group jumped when Mart turned suddenly and barked:
“The Chi Kid came here tonight, Fat; he came to see you. What did he want? You knew he was coming, I can prove that. Now, what was it for? What business could a Chicago gun have with you?”
Fat looked miserably from face to face. Everywhere, he met only hard eyes and seeming suspicion. He knew too well what this meant — he was on trial — and his next few words would clear or smash him.
“I... I don’t know what he wanted, Mart,” he said huskily. “I’d swear to that on a stack of bibles as high as the Chrysler building. I did know that somebody’d be along from Chi in a day or two — but that come to me roundabout and I wasn’t say in’ nothin’ until I could get all the dope.”
“Quit stalling and spill it!” Mart demanded tersely. “As a matter of fact, you’ve been dickering with the Chicago outfit, haven’t you?”
“Jeez no, Mart!” Fat wailed. “Here’s what happened. See if you can make head or tail out of it.
“Babe Jordon come over from Newark a week ago: introduced a man as Bill Meadows from Philly. He said this bird was comin’ in with a taxi racket and wanted some advice. We talked Philly for awhile and the feller sure knew the town and the big shots there.
“Anyhow I tol’ him to keep out: told him everybody’d forget personal rows and gang up on him if he came in. I told him, ‘New York’s organized better’ll Chi ever was.’ ”
“Well—” Mart demanded. “What then?”
“He kept on askin’ a lotta questions, wantin’ to be told why he couldn’t edge in. When I’d tell him, he’d ask if this or that couldn’t be done. He wanted to know if the cops could be got to, if anything went to city hall — an’ he brought your name in. He said you was all that stood in his way.
“When he got up to go, he says, ‘Think it over: a guy named “Kid” will see you in a few days.’ That was all until tonight when Parker whistled back that Chi Kid wanted t’ see me. Me an’ Red and Hymie was talkin’ so I said for him to wait.
“That’s all, Mart; hope to Gawd I die this minute if they was anythin’ else.”
The circle of faces remained bleak, but no one saw fit to comment on Fat’s story. Presently Mart motioned for Skillman to accompany him to a corner of the room. Then, one at a time they called Slater and Eltner, quizzing them about their presence in Fat’s private office.
Both plainly were worried and lost no time in returning to the others at Mart’s nod of dismissal. He chatted for a moment longer with Skillman, then both rejoined the others.
Fat was in a state of complete funk by now. His lips were working spasmodically and great drops of perspiration stood on his forehead. Unsteadily he reached for the whiskey bottle, but snatched it back as Mart snapped, crisply:
“Fat, you sold out to the Chicago gang. We’ve got it on you. You called Slater and Eltner in tonight; you said it was important business. Then you stalled for two hours.
“You were waiting, Fat, for Mister Chi Kid to come and lay his plan before you three. You figured that with Slater handling things in the Bronx and Eltner taking care of the East side, you could pull some more in with you, enough so that the Chicago lads could get a foothold.”
“It’s a lie!” Fat almost screamed the words. “Jees, Mart! Ain’t I always shot square wit’ you ’n everybody; I’m makin’ good jack the way things is. Why should I turn up my pals?”
Mart leaned forward fixing him with a baleful glare as he said raspingly:
“Fat, for fifty grand — half of it — you’d sell your soul and the lives of your whole family. You were the pivot guy; I know it now. They tried to get to Skillman and when he balked, they dickered with some of the Brooklyn outfit. But they didn’t get anywhere until they found you.”
“It ain’t so, I tell you,” Fat chattered through bloodless lips. “I didn’t have nothin’ to do with it.”
Mart was inexorable.
“Last chance, Fat, or a ride,” he snapped. “Tonight wasn’t the first time Chi Kid had been here. He was here once before — when?”
He barked the last word. It snapped like a pistol shot.
“Yester— He never was here before.” Fat’s voice rose to a scream.
But he knew that he had fumbled. Moaning, hiding his face behind his fingers as though to shut out the sight of the vengeance which was upon him, he rocked unsteadily in his seat.
Chimp came to his feet, gibbering horribly, his bony hands twitching toward the flabby bulk weaving before him.
“Lemme have him, Mart!” he husked. “Gimme him — the damned, lousy double crossin’ rat.”
“No! No!” Fat wailed, terrified. “Not that, Mart. Gimme a chanst!”
Mart motioned Chimp back.
“Wait,” he commanded. “I’m going to count six. If Fat starts talking, it’s off. If he doesn’t, you can help yourself — and tear me off a chunk of white meat.”
Fat uttered a moan of mortal anguish. Unnerved, broken, he slid to his knees. He raised his hands, pleadingly, to the others.
“Skill—” he mouthed droolingly. “Boys — make him gimme — a chanst. I ain’t done nothin’ — honest t’ Gawd I ain’t.”
“One!”
Mart pitched his voice to rise over the tumult. The others continued to regard Fat stonily, faces set in grim refusal to interfere.
“Two!” — “Three!” — “Four!” It seemed to the others that an almost interminable period divided the count. Fat was on his face now, groping and grovelling in anguished terror.
“Five!”
Chimp leaped to his feet, kicking his chair halfway across the room.
The crash seemed to galvanize Fat into action. Hoisting himself to his hands and knees like a fallen boxer, his head rolling drunkenly, he muttered:
“I did it... I did it! They promised — protect me. The Big Noise — got something on me — made me help. It... it wasn’t much — he wanted, Mart — taxicab racket—”
The words broke the calm of the onlookers. Skillman and the others, accustomed as they were to the unmasking of double crossers, growled angrily at the spectacle of Fat, recipient of gangland and official bounty, turning on his own kind.